What started as a personal journey of a doctor turned patient morphed into a way to share what’s universal in dealing with cancer, in my case a nasty leukemia (CLL), a failed transplant and a successful clinical trial. The telling of my journey has become a journey to teach about CLL, related blood issues and all cancers. Please visit our new website http://cllsociety.org for the latest news and information. Smart patients get smart care™. If you want to reach me, email bkoffmanMD@gmail.com

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Tornado Warnings, sore hips, and my broken internal clock

WILD DAFFODILS JUST NORTH OF COLUMBUS

Out for our dusk walk and we keep hearing sirens. To the right the sky is bright blue with fluffy light clouds backlit by the setting sun. Perfect.

Ahead to the east. black clouds against grey sky moving fast with lightning flashes and loud thunder every few seconds. Coming closer. Ominous.

The air is strangely calm.

We cut our walk short and hustle home just before the cloud burst. The thunder is hammering at the windows.

Tornado warning in effect. One aiming at the airport as I post. It's always something.

I am still up to 3 AM most days and have trouble waking in the morning. Can't seem to be able to reset my clock even after a week here in Columbus.

I have several absolute final must complete by tomorrow assignments due that are not helping my adjustment as I tend to do my best bursts of work late at night, at the last moment.

And I have this mysterious annoying left quadriceps pain that comes and goes with vengeance and abandon, leaving me crippled with pain at times and completely fine and wondering if I am imagining this all at other times.

When I stand up (sometimes only) there is excruciating pain in my left lateral quads about 2/3 of the way down to my knee. The pain always disappears when I am sitting or lying down, and most but not all the time after a few steps. Sometimes it lingers for an hour while I am up. It radiates down almost to my knee and up to my groin.

Mornings are best and so are the ends of the day.

I never know if I am going to hurt when I get off the sofa or out of the car.

I worried about avascular necrosis of the hip from all the steroids, but my passive range of motion is good and my hip only hurts with flexion which it not classical.

There is no warmth or swelling and it is so intermittent so I doubt it is a deep vein thrombosis.

It feels more like a deep unremembered bruise that is jamming the quad mechanisms and I have to wait for it to release. My lateral tenderness fits with that too.

But why is it not getting better and arguably worse after 5 days?

The intensity and the unpredictability of the gotcha is making want to sit more and walk less- not a good thing.

Tomorrow is another whole day at the infusion center with all the premeds of steroids and benadryl and more again. And it will be my first full dose of ofatumumab. I am not thrilled.

But I soldier on and Tuesday I am going to the main 600,0000 square foot (yea that is more than half a million square feet in one of several facilities for the students at OSU) recreation facility for an orientation to the workout equipment. Bought a new speedo for the 4 swimming pools.

And Tuesday night I have tickets for a hockey game.

Met some lovely other lab rats in the trial several weeks ahead of us who are doing great.

And spring is definitely trying to make its presence felt as evidenced by the photo from the walk in woods at a nearby city park.

More critical PCI-32765 trial news tomorrow once I get official confirmation from the trial staff.

Eery sirens or no sirens, bad news or not, I am here for the duration.

Wish I had matches for my candles. Glad to have a roof over our head. Should we head for the closet?

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

YIKES........Have never been through a tornado....but did go through a hurricane.....stay in the bathroom.....showere is best place if I remember right.....Geeze, there is never a dull moment with you. Hoope your leg starts feeling better and that tomorrow youhave no ill side effects from your infussion.

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About Me

BkoffmanMD@gmail.com
A family doc and husband of 1 and father of 4 and grandfather of 3 who loves his family and his work. I live with no TV and no microwave, but wouldn't last a minute without friends, art, music, books and the beach. Hockey, good jokes and exotic travel are pretty important too. Writing, Talmud and Zen give meaning to my life. My diet is organic vegan, often raw. I hope the blog makes the load lighter and the path both safer and more fun for those who read it or are going to similar places. I want to help. I crave your comments. If you are new to the blog, check out the portrait my son Will painted (it is the first post), and my very first text post.